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@ppoli611674629039 · 19 Nov 2020

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Gollum, the ambivalent Id monster

#tolkien  #fantasy

“Deserves it! I dare say he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Than do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. "

In the second book Frodo meets Gollum face to face. Sam advises him to get rid of the vile creature but Frodo, remembering Gandalf's words, does not have the courage to lower the sword on the miserable being.

“Very well”, he answered aloud, lowering his sword. "But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him. "

In the third book it will be up to Sam to spare Gollum, the very being he hates most in the world. The scheme is precise: the value of mercy is transmitted from Bilbo to Frodo and from Frodo to Sam. Frodo and Sam both undergo identical development. Frodo does not understand Bilbo's act but then behaves like him, the same happens to Sam who, at first, does not understand Frodo's pity, but then fails to kill the wretched Gollum.

"Sam's hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil. It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. "

The joint act of piety of Bilbo, Frodo and Sam, three bearers of the Ring, who spared the life of an insignificant and largely evil creature, proves to be providential. Bilbo, Frodo and Sam will be saved from the evil effects of the Ring, their hearts will remain pure. Gollum, then, has one last fundamental part to play in the story, it will be he who will allow the effective destruction of the Ring of Evil.

Hobbits are "all-round" characters who undergo transformations within the novel. Their thoughts are always recorded directly from within.

Tolkien adopted the technique of the circumscribed point of view. All the great events are filtered through the eyes of the hobbits, the little fairy-tale heroes. At least one hobbit is always present in the highlights. If one of the hobbits cannot be present at an event, this is not experienced directly by the reader but briefly told by the characters who took part in it. In this way, Tolkien renounces a fundamental scene such as Aragorn's crossing of the Paths of the Dead, in order not to abandon the hobbit point of view.

The adoption of the Jamesian limited point of view makes the "fairy tale" The Lord of the Rings a psychological novel in which the characters are analyzed from the inside and the events observed foreshortened, not from the perspective of the great protagonists of the myth - who feel at home in the epic and unreal atmosphere - but from small, clumsy, awkward hobbits. It is as if, instead of witnessing the fight with Grendel through Beowulf's eyes, we were witnessing it through the prosaic and disenchanted eyes of his wingman.

Hobbits are granted the greatest human characteristics, or rather, those that man should have: loyalty, tenacity, endurance, courage. Man is the hobbit, small in a large world, governed by incomprehensible laws. Like the hobbit, he sometimes knows how to rise to gigantic dimensions, to fight with his courage and his spirit of sacrifice.

Tolkien admits that he drew inspiration for his hobbits from the soldiers who were subjected to him in World War I, simple boys who, bravely, sacrificed themselves for their homeland in a war they did not want.

It is interesting to note how hobbits, who, as we have said, most of all embody human psychological aspects, represent in the book all the ages of man: Pippin adolescence, Merry youth, Frodo middle age and Bilbo old age. In this way the stages of human life are presented.

Tolkien manages to link individual psychology with the collective one of race, lineage, age, giving us a rich and lively picture.

The psychological traits of hobbits emerge more from their dialogue than from the author's descriptions.

The first description we have of Frodo derives from the comments of gossipers and the portrait that emerges is quite inconclusive, since they only know him by sight. The reader will fully understand Frodo only at the end of the book, after he has seen him live all the trials, overcome temptation or fall into it, help friends or feel the urge to flee and leave them in danger, be afraid or confident. Frodo's fall, his pardon of Gollum, his renunciation of battle, and his departure for the Gray Ports, are final brushstrokes given to a portrait that ends only at the end of the book.

On a genetic substrate of hobbit loyalty, goodness and tenacity, of "Baggins" fear, and Took resourcefulness, Frodo inserts contributions from the environment. His portrait cannot be painted at the beginning of the book by an omniscient author because Frodo is what he is at the end of the story only because of the vicissitudes faced, that is, the influence of the environment and experience.

The quest in the Tolkinian fairy tale is transformed into an educational experience that allows the characters to test their character, their moral strength, their courage. It brings out the virtues of the four hobbits that would otherwise remain hidden and unknown to their own owners. It can also bring out weaknesses and cowardice of which the protagonists were not aware.

Elrond refers to the quest as a formative experience, a reagent capable of highlighting the character traits of the protagonists of the fairy tale when he invites the members of the Felloship of the Ring not to swear:

Of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road." "No oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road. "

The quest as an educational experience is characteristic of all folk tales.

The quest for "The Golden Bird" helps Bertrando recognize evil even when he hides under a familiar face, the quest for "The Eleven Swans" tests the protagonist's love for her brothers.

However, in Tolkien's works and in fantasy literature in general, this aspect is dramatically enhanced with a copious dose of explicit references.

Frodo's journey increasingly assumes the character of an inner ethical research. Frodo and his companions "descend" within themselves to seek the courage and will necessary to overcome all the tests.

In The Lord of the Rings there is a character whose characteristic is to be ambivalent by nature.

A very large part of the criticism has raged against Tolkien's novel because it considers it too polarized. It is insisted that the good ones are too good and the bad ones too bad, that the symbolism of light and dark, black and white, is too obvious.

In our opinion, however, Tolkien has a clear perception of the ambivalences and contradictions present in everyday life. In writing a fantasy novel, however, he cannot make his protagonists complex, multifaceted, ambivalent characters such as a "Stephen Dedalus", a "Moses Herzog", or an "Anna Freeman". In the economy of fantasy fiction this would be out of place. Tolkien must find a way to objectify even the ambivalent components of reality into symbols.

In Tolkien's fantasy, just as there is a dragon to represent absolute evil, so there is a specific ambivalent character to represent internal conflicts. Instead of making Frodo too multifaceted, he creates an alter ego, Gollum, perhaps the most fascinating character in the whole book, the one on which every critic dwells at least once.

Gollum's mind was distorted by prolonged contact with the Ring. His possession of the One began with a murder and since then his wickedness has grown, making him a slimy, aquatic, cannibalistic, crawling creature often associated with disgusting spiders and insects. Yet, in his mind it is still a corner of goodness, a glimmer of normality, and this is what tears him apart. He is a schizophrenic, whose nature is split in two.

The evil part, distorted and deformed by the obsession of the Ring, responds to the name of Gollum and always speaks in the plural with an abundance of hisses and gurgles, addressing himself or the Ring, "My Precious". The part still intact retains the original name Smeagol, speaks in the first person and inexplicably becomes attached to Frodo.

The linguistic fabric of the text also follows this split of the character, associating him from time to time with a DOG or a SPIDER.

One of the most moving moments of the book is the debate that the "two sides" of Gollum (meaningfully referred to by Sam as "Slinkler" and "Stinker") hold between them in front of the sleeping Frodo. Gollum has to decide whether or not to betray the hobbit who does possess his "weaver", but who was kind and compassionate to him.

“Gollum was talking to himself. Smeagol was holding a debate with some other thought that used the same voice but made it squeak and hiss. A pale light and a green light alternated in his eyes as he spoke. "

"Gollum" tries to convince "Smeagol" that the only important thing is to take back the Ring. “Smeagol” whines that Frodo has been good to him and would not want to hurt him.

“Nice hobbit! He took cruel rope off Smeagol's leg. He speaks nicely to me. "

In the end "Gollum" has the upper hand:

"Each time that the second thought spoke, Gollum’s long hand crept out slowly, pawing towards Frodo, and then was drawn back with a jerk as Smeagol spoke again. Finally both arms, with long fingers flexed and twitching clawed towards his neck. "
Gollum is a Tolkien study on obsession and damnation. More than disgust, he inspires pity, even in Sam, his archenemy:

"Sam himself, though only for a little while, had borne the Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shriveled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again."

There is a similarity between Gollum and Frodo that Sam also notes:

"The two were in some way akin and not alien: they could reach one another's mind."

Gollum is also of hobbit descent. Gollum is what Frodo could become if he let himself go to the power of the Ring, he is the double of Frodo, the alter ego.

In The Lord of the Rings, the dragon is given up and, as Verlyn Flieger points out, a new type of "monster" is introduced. This too is proof of Tolkien's syncretism that Flieger calls "modern medievalism": modern conflicts are represented with ancient techniques of romance.

Frodo's battle is psychological in nature, the battlefield Frodo himself, yet

"The disrupted forces of darkness and inner conflicts must be represented by persons or objects outside the heroic characters." (V. Flieger)

For this reason Gollum, the madman, is introduced as

"Today’s readers of a modern narrative, however medieval its spirit, may be reluctant to accept a truly medieval monster - a dragon or a fiend - but he is accustomed to accepting internal conflict, man warring with himself."

Beyond the common struggle against Sauron, each of us must fight a personal struggle against hi/hers own Gollum, the dark, unaccepted part of us, the materialization of the unconscious.

Throughout the torturous journey through Mordor, Frodo virtually disappears as a thinking individuality. Of him there remains only a body that becomes heavier and heavier to drag. His thoughts are known to us through the reasoning and actions of his companions: Sam, the good conscience, the super-ego that carries the ego on its shoulder to the goal, and Gollum, the shadow, the monster of id that pushes the ego to the brink of ruin, but, at the last minute, saves it, self-canceling itself. Gollum falls into the abyss: evil destroys itself.